SEC revenue set to jump 50% with playoff, new TV deals

Submitted by Cold War on

Already home to many of the nation's best-financed college athletics programs, the Southeastern Conference is about two years from distributing at least $10 million -- and perhaps as much as $14 million -- more per school than it did during the 2011-12 fiscal year, a USA TODAY Sports analysis projects.

This would represent at least a 50% increase in the SEC's per-school take, which could get close to $34 million in 2014-15 and for a few years exceed the revenue each of the Big Ten Conference schools get from their shares of conference and NCAA revenues. In part because of the Big Ten Network's success, most Big Ten schools recently have been receiving $1 million to $4 million more per year than SEC schools – roughly $23 million to $25 million apiece...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/01/16/sec-conference-money-increases/1836389/

Geary_maize

January 16th, 2013 at 4:28 PM ^

One thing that Delaney probably wishes he could redo is the ownership of the B1G. Fox has 51%. If we were to own 100%, the B1G would probably always be the richest conference.

CarrIsMyHomeboy

January 16th, 2013 at 6:54 PM ^

I disagree ardently.

(1) Not only is Fox's possession of 51% of the BTN temporary (they are contractually obligated to rescind controlling shares at some future unspecified date and, until then, act as a powerful TV figurehead with the ability to well grow the fledgling network) but...

(2) NewsCorp, which owns Fox, which owns BTN, has long had vested interests to bring their own full-time college network to the New York thumbprint. Less-than-coincidentally, the day after the Big Ten acquired Rutgers, NewsCorp purchased the Yes! network. In 2017, when the Big Ten drafts its new television contracts, it's predicted the BTN per member payout will exceed $47mil**.

All told, Delany probably feels mighty proud of himself on this and, from several worthwhile perspectives (those related to revenue, not tradition or fan interest), he ought to feel exactly as proud as he does.

 

**(Caveat: So long as "sports bundles" are still the cable paradigm: This is the biggest of all the bets that Delany has made. If sports bundles die before then, though there's no evidence that'll happen so quickly, not only will the Big Ten be revenuedly eff'd, but we will have also acquired Maryland and Rutgers perfectly in vain. This is not at all expected, but humans tend to be sucky predictors of the future, so anything is possible.)

turtleboy

January 16th, 2013 at 4:36 PM ^

So in the future SEC schools could make more than B1G schools do now. But, in the future B1G schools will make more money than they currently do, too. Still, the SEC is getting a big boost when they renegotiate their long term tv deals. 

ShockFX

January 16th, 2013 at 6:31 PM ^

I wouldn't worry about it. The SEC renogotiation is being done shortly, and isn't going to provide a huge boost simply because ESPN doesn't have to pay that much more. It won't void the contract, and ESPN isn't going to rain money on them because they want to.

The B1G schools will likely always turn bigger profits because it's a more affluent set of viewers in areas like DC/NYC/Chicago/TwinCities and the states of PA/OH/MI. SEC has Atlanta and...Nashville? St Louis? Birmingham?

bluebyyou

January 16th, 2013 at 4:49 PM ^

Going strictly from memory, I thought that when the B1G renegotiates its TV contract in the not too distance future, the revenue per school is supposed to be in the low to mid 40 million a year range.

LSAClassOf2000

January 16th, 2013 at 5:46 PM ^

The most recent distribution was in June 2012, according to my data. The Big Ten distributed $284 million from TV revenue to 12 schools, with eleven schools getting $24.6 million and Nebraska getting its "newbie" take of $14 million or so. The SEC, in the same period, distributed $241.5 million to the 12 schools that were in the conference in 2011, which works out to about $20.1 million per school. 

bluebyyou is perhaps remembering the same article in Crain's that I also read - the projection right now is that the growth in existing markets as well as expansion into the DC and NYC areas potentially makes the Big Ten deal worth about $43 million per school by 2017 if all goes well.